As the prevention, treatment and recovery advocacy movement spreads across Connecticut, CTYF is taking a lead role promoting advocacy for adolescents and families. Working in collaboration with Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR), a number of the mental health adult and family advocacy efforts, and many local grassroots parent, youth and youth faith based groups.
Some members and friends of CTYF participate in outside mutual support groups that include traditions of anonymity. We are not linked with Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or any specific mutual support groups. We are not linked with Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or any specific mutual support groups. For those who would like to understand further about how public advocacy works with anonymity please review the Advocacy with Anonymity publication by Faces & Voices of Recovery.
We have begun meeting to educate and discuss with Connecticut legislators and State agency policy makers the items we need action on. CTYF youth and families are seated at the public policy table representing your voice on matters pertaining to family driven and youth guided alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery in CT for youth. CTYF's Public Policy Committee to meets regularly to get input from Youth and Families for the 2009 Legislative Agenda. The committee continues to work on advocacy activities based on its' action plan and priorities for the 2009 Legislative Session. The 2009 Regular Session convened on January 7, 2009 and will adjourn on June 3, 2009.
Prior to the session at our summer meeting at Killams Point we identified our 2009 legislative priorities and Legislative action agenda. We will work to keep you informed of progress and how you can help by posting on our website legislative updates regularly during the session.
We need more residential substance abuse treatment beds in Connecticut and more recovery support services for youth. Families need support communicating with their kids, and to be involved in the treatment process as natural supports.
CTYF gets calls every week about this need, our families don't know where to go to keep their youth safe, and our youth cannot get help when they need it. Prescription opiate painkillers are common drugs in overdoses, all too familiar to Connecticut youth. The national percentage of high school seniors who smoke marijuana on a daily basis tripled from 2 percent to 6 percent in the 1990's. More youth are dying, according to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "accidental poisoning deaths" in the 15 through 24 age group from overdoses have jumped from 849 to 2,355 nationally. The problem should not be measured only in fatalities and stories, Connecticut needs to be tracking better data on this. CTYF is calling for policies that will make it possible for every parent and youth to get help. Help that will make it possible for every youth in Connecticut to get recovery support from addiction.
Only a tiny fraction of the money federal agencies sends to Connecticut under the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant program is aimed at young drug abusers. In Connecticut we do not track how much we are spending across State budgets for adolescent treatment. We need separate budgets for residential treatment of adolescent substance abuse so dollars proportioned to substance abuse residential are not combined with mental health. Currently there are no State funds to support youth and family peer-to-peer advocacy and publicly funded peer-to-peer recovery support services in the community, yet we know this works!
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